Author: Blizzard proposed a portable Diablo prequel

A second Diablo II expansion was also mulled.

Thus far, the only way to play Blizzard's Diablo series outside of a PC or Mac environment has been through a 1998 PlayStation port of the 1996 original. But after the release of Diablo II, Blizzard North apparently had plans to bring a version of the game over to Nintendo's portable systems.

As part of the run-up to the release of his upcoming Blizzard history book Stay Awhile and Listen, author David Craddock told ShackNews that the developers at Blizzard North split into two teams after the 2000 release of Diablo II. While one of these teams worked on the Lords of Destruction expansion, the other one put together proposals for side projects including Diablo Junior, a single-player portable prequel that would have been targeted for the Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance.

According to Craddock, the plan called for the portable game to be split into three cartridges, Pokemon-style, with each version having a different character class and support for cross-system item trading. The game was ultimately scrapped, though, because of what Craddock called "steep production costs associated with developing handheld games."

Craddock also discussed internal plans for a second Diablo II expansion after 2001's Lord of Destruction. This second expansion would have focused more on expanded multiplayer gameplay, with new features such as upgradeable clan guildhalls to serve as central meeting places for planning quests. The idea was apparently scrapped after just a bit of brainstorming in favor of starting the long development cycle for Diablo III.

ShackNews posted a series of discussions with Craddock where he reveals more behind-the-scenes details regarding the development of the Diablo and Warcraft franchises, as well as an odd tale of how Blizzard North almost became a sports game developer. It's a fascinating read for anyone obsessed with Blizzard, or even for people interested in diving into the process of game development.

I was a super duper fan of D1 and expecially D2. I just started playing D3. It is pretty good but seems very much like D2 with just new skin, lets say D2.5. It's enjoyable and has ok replay value I think but it didn't really meet the hyped up expectations, especially given that it took 10 years for it to come out. D2 was the kind of game that made you want to leap out of bed on weekend mornings and play. D3 not so much.

Diablo 1 was available for the original Playstation console... and it was a terrible experience resulting in failure which, IMO, has kept them away from the console platforms ever since. I also recall playing Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness for the original Playstation - and while I had some fun playing it, it really was not the same experience with a controller as it is using a keyboard and mouse setup. That style of game play just doesn't translate well onto a console with a controller.

Not sure why we had a copy of Diablo PSOne (had it on PC, maybe it was a rip or to split computer time) but it was not bad. 1 is a bit more slower paced than 3, which helps.

All the Snowblind ARPG games on consoles have been great. Although those were designed with consoles in mind. They may have to revamp how some abilities work, dmg numbers, mob AI to work well against someone wielding a controller.

There have been some ARPGs on handheld. GBA era... not sure tho. Phantasy Star O (DS game) is a good game bringing PSO from console to handheld.

Meh. 10 years ago I was a big blizzard fan. Loved diablo1, liked diablo2. Had warcraft1 and 2. But Diablo3 is just a big stinking disappointment. Reading about might-have-beens just seems like it would be depressing.

I don't see how you can have a good Diablo experience on a gameboy. The mouse seems an inescapable necessity.

Well, it would obviously have to be a simplified interface given only a d-pad and four buttons, but I don't understand why you think that the mouse is "an inescapable necessity". The d-pad could easily be used for movement rather than a mouse click. You have your A and B buttons to use items or skills instead of hitting a number on your keyboard. For special functions like accessing your character's paper doll and inventory or skill tree, you could press either the Start or Select buttons.

D3 has falled into the netherworlds of games I will never play again. After making it through the game on the first 3 difficulty levels, it lost all the appeal, which is sad because I really wanted it to be a game I would play for a while. It is just endlessly boring to play through the same short sequence of a game, with enemies that are all the same and just come in increasingly difficult flavors. All to buy and sell crap in the game for real money. That is the only thing blizzard cared about when making D3.

I don't see how you can have a good Diablo experience on a gameboy. The mouse seems an inescapable necessity.

You clearly have never played Gauntlet then? It was a stick and a couple of buttons to play. Fail to see how a mouse would have made it a better game.....

Diablo on the PS vanilla,Torchlight, Bauldurs Gate:DA series, Bards Tale, or Fallout Brotherhood of steel , Marvel Ultimate Alliance for starters.... I will even toss in the broken Sacred game, for what its worth, its "playable." but not becasue of the control schemes.

Crawlers like this can thrive on these systems if done right.

Key/mouse vs control er is moot as both are viable fits for this type of game. you do not need precision like you would for an FPS. Its all button mashing.

If anything, there has been a LACK of crawlers being developed for these systems. I was pretty happy to hear Bliz was actively working on a Diablo centric games for consoles.

Diablo 1 was available for the original Playstation console... and it was a terrible experience resulting in failure which, IMO, has kept them away from the console platforms ever since. I also recall playing Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness for the original Playstation - and while I had some fun playing it, it really was not the same experience with a controller as it is using a keyboard and mouse setup. That style of game play just doesn't translate well onto a console with a controller.

It was their first port, and one helluva game for the PS1, REGARDLESS of some of the issues. Yeah, the auto attack feature sucked, that should t have happened....all the elements of the game were there, and MORE than playable.

I don't see how you can have a good Diablo experience on a gameboy. The mouse seems an inescapable necessity.

You clearly have never played Gauntlet then? It was a stick and a couple of buttons to play. Fail to see how a mouse would have made it a better game.....

Diablo on the PS vanilla,Torchlight, Bauldurs Gate:DA series, Bards Tale, or Fallout Brotherhood of steel , Marvel Ultimate Alliance for starters.... I will even toss in the broken Sacred game, for what its worth, its "playable." but not becasue of the control schemes.

Crawlers like this can thrive on these systems if done right.

Key/mouse vs control er is moot as both are viable fits for this type of game. you do not need precision like you would for an FPS. Its all button mashing.

If anything, there has been a LACK of crawlers being developed for these systems. I was pretty happy to hear Bliz was actively working on a Diablo centric games for consoles.

With that,jester needs food, badly!

Gauntlet was a completely different sort of game, though. It was drive forward through the wall of ghosts/whatevers while your HP was drained and you fed the machine quarters.

I know on the PC the cursor is a pretty significant part of gameplay.

I suppose you could play barbarian class with just a d-pad and a few buttons, but it certainly seems like it would be difficult to properly capture the feel of the ranged classes.

In addition, the quick use slots that were keyboard accessible were part of the effectiveness of Diablo, too. I guess on the gameboy you'd be mashing shoulder buttons to scroll through them and hitting a quick use slot activation button.

It was their first port, and one helluva game for the PS1, REGARDLESS of some of the issues. Yeah, the auto attack feature sucked, that should t have happened....all the elements of the game were there, and MORE than playable.

To be fair - there were a lot of problems with it that were due to hardware limitations of the system. For example, the saving relied upon the old school memory cards which was a painfully slow and tedious process, especially for a game that really relied upon the need to save frequently. The game also tended to lag, particularly towards the end when there would be a massive onslaught of enemies and projectiles which over-taxed the system. These are issues that could definitely be rendered moot by today's more more powerful consoles. (I also wonder how difficult/possible it would be to integrate the ability to use a USB/Wireless keyboard alongside a controller for a modern console like the PS3).

I guess counter to my initial view, there have been some games out that managed to transition from PC to the console. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion had a decent controller configuration IMO - although I much prefer the series on PC still. (I actually found Oblivion console controls to be much better than the Skyrim console controls, but I could be in the minority on that one). If anything, I would say that Diablo 3 would be more apt to working well on consoles than Diablo 2 mainly due to changes in the dynamics of the gameplay (we're not constantly chugging potions and town portals, for example).

Edit: I've also used TeamViewer for Android to login to my home system and play Diablo 2 ... far from ideal, but it was interesting to try. There are perhaps better ways to achieve this with less overhead, but I wasn't trying to seriously play.

The cart hit eBay a few years back and really isn't that big of news for those who followed the Diablo lore. Some of the ideas being floated around promoting the book I've heard elsewhere. Like guild halls in Diablo II or originally having six races in WarCraft 3.

Diablo 1 was available for the original Playstation console... and it was a terrible experience resulting in failure which, IMO, has kept them away from the console platforms ever since. I also recall playing Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness for the original Playstation - and while I had some fun playing it, it really was not the same experience with a controller as it is using a keyboard and mouse setup. That style of game play just doesn't translate well onto a console with a controller.

Gah, Diablo PSX. I play-tested that bag of suck, and can confirm that this man speaks truth. Electronic Arts Canada did the QA for both Diablo PSX and Warcraft 2 Saturn and PSX. Let me assure you, the QA team made numerous numerous suggestions for fixing the terrible control scheme to (the 3rd party dev who's name I don't remember), some of which they even implemented.

Imagine that, it used to be worse. It was long enough ago now that I don't remember all of the craziest early controls, but a 3 button sequence for a healing potion was one of em.

I don't see how you can have a good Diablo experience on a gameboy. The mouse seems an inescapable necessity.

Erich Danke wrote:

Regardless, I couldn't imagine playing Diablo without a mouse any more than I can stomach FPS games without them. Sure you could do it, but why?

Using a controller is typically a more comfortable experience in diablolikes (hah) because you can actually control the character directly; the FPS and RTS issues never come into play. Instead, compare diablolikes to any type of side-scroller; would you really use a mouse for Final Fight or Mega Man? Also consider that the big deal for Diablo isn't the mouse, it's the keyboard.

If Diablo for the PlayStation was a "failure", it had to do with reasons completely separate from this.

kleinma wrote:

D3 has falled into the netherworlds of games I will never play again. After making it through the game on the first 3 difficulty levels, it lost all the appeal, which is sad because I really wanted it to be a game I would play for a while. It is just endlessly boring to play through the same short sequence of a game, with enemies that are all the same and just come in increasingly difficult flavors. All to buy and sell crap in the game for real money. That is the only thing blizzard cared about when making D3.

I'm tired of seeing this specific argument; Diablo II is much the same, but these people would never say such things about it. Those that do correctly hate the entire genre.

Diablo III's problems are with what it doesn't do compared to II. The GAH and the RMAH simply allow Blizzard to control what has always been, and it's a lot better that way.

jackstrop wrote:

Gauntlet was a completely different sort of game, though. It was drive forward through the wall of ghosts/whatevers while your HP was drained and you fed the machine quarters.

Which is exactly what Diablo is, except now with RPG elements.

xorloser wrote:

To be fair - there were a lot of problems with it that were due to hardware limitations of the system. For example, the saving relied upon the old school memory cards which was a painfully slow and tedious process, especially for a game that really relied upon the need to save frequently.

The issue is actually completely different and it is in Diablo's design (if at all); there's as much need to save here as in any other game. However, Diablo brings in savescumming, which always happens when you can save any time you want. Diablo also brings in the ability to save a character and start a new game, making savescumming almost worthless.

...God, why do I even bother posting, no one's going to read this. No one's going to understand any of this. I read way too many of these comments to think otherwise.

Yeah, put me on the "Diablo for PSX wasn't all that bad" train. Not as good as on PC, for various reasons, but a competent game for the most part and most of the issues with it were technical, not conceptual.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.